‘They do:  they are happy in serving.’

’You see, we English are not such bad fellows when we’re known.  The climate to-day, for example, is rather trying.’

‘I miss colours most in England,’ said Carinthia.  ’I like the winds.  Now and then we have a day to remember.’

’We ’re to be “the artist of the day,” Gower Woodseer says, and we get an attachment to the dreariest; we are to study “small variations of the commonplace”—­dear me!  But he may be right.  The “sky of lead and scraped lead” over those lines, he points out; and it’s not a bad trick for reconciling us to gloomy English weather.  You take lessons from him?’

‘I can always learn from him,’ said Carinthia.

Fleetwood depicted his plodding Gower at the tussle with account-books.  She was earnest in sympathy; not awake to the comical; dull as the clouds, dull as the discourse.  Yet he throbbed for being near her took impression of her figure, the play of her features, the carriage of her body.

He was shut from her eyes.  The clear brown eyes gave exchange of looks; less of admission than her honest maid’s.

Madge and the miracle infant awaited them on the terrace.  For so foreign did the mother make herself to him, that the appearance of the child, their own child, here between them, was next to miraculous; and the mother, who might well have been the most astonished, had transparently not an idea beyond the verified palpable lump of young life she lifted in her arms out of the arms of Madge, maternally at home with its presence on earth.

Demonstrably a fine specimen, a promising youngster.  The father was allowed to inspect him.  This was his heir:  a little fellow of smiles, features, puckered brows of inquiry; seeming a thing made already, and active on his own account.

‘Do people see likenesses?’ he asked.

‘Some do,’ said the mother.

‘You?’

She was constrained to give answer.  ’There is a likeness to my father, I have thought.’

There’s a dotage of idolatrous daughters, he could have retorted; and his gaze was a polite offer to humdrum reconcilement, if it pleased her.

She sent the child up the steps.

‘Do you come in, my lord?’

‘The house is yours, my lady.’

‘I cannot feel it mine.’

‘You are the mistress to invite or exclude.’

’I am ready to go in a few hours for a small income of money, for my child and me.’

‘—­Our child.’

‘Yes.’

‘It is our child.’

‘It is.’

‘Any sum you choose to name.  But where would you live?’

‘Near my brother I would live.’

’Three thousand a year for pin-money, or more, are at your disposal.  Stay here, I beg.  You have only to notify your wants.  And we’ll talk familiarly now, as we’re together.  Can I be of aid to your brother?  Tell me, pray.  I am disposed in every way to subscribe to your wishes.  Pray, speak, speak out.’